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“Really?” He cut a glance my way as he closed his door. “That true?”
“Yeah.” I hated how my belly tightened at the words. “It’s okay.”
“Just okay, huh? I know of a place that does thebestgrilled chicken and bacon. The cheese…oh, man.Stringy, sharp, just oozing as you lift it to your mouth.”
My own watered as he spoke. I licked my lips. “Yeah. I could go for a pizza.”
He smiled, then gave mom a sly wink. “How about you run upstairs and get ready and I’ll order it for an hour, sound good to you?”
In an hour I could start to set up my new MacBook. Excitement hummed inside me. “Yeah, that’s perfect.”
He strode to the interior door and opened it, motioning me through. “Sounds like a date to me. It’ll be good having you and your mom here, I won’t tend to eat so much. I love pizza,” he said, as he looked down and slapped his hand against his hard stomach. “Although the waistline doesn't."
I gave a shrug and slipped past. "You look fine…for an old guy."
“Old?”he growled as I quickened my steps, fighting the smile on my lips. “Why, you little..." he growled, playfully pretending a grab at me.
And just like that, the heaviness of the prison slipped away.
I climbed the stairs and made my way to my bedroom. Even the house felt different. Lighter, emptier. Almost like...home.
Home.
I swallowed, my fleeting smile slipping away. It was almost a betrayal. Almost like I wanted to leave it all behind, the frequent fighting…the constant worrying, the numerous lies. I'd heard it all from the cracked open door of my bedroom.
I swallowed hard and opened the door to the new bedroom, and stopped. It was empty…I glanced at the clear space now at the end of the bed. All the machines were gone. “What?” I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, moving around the room. The indentations on the carpet were still there. But apart from the bed and a dresser next to it, the room was bare.
I glanced over my shoulder. They'd done this? Came in and cleared out all their mother’s things?
I didn’t know how I felt about that. Sad. Happy that I could at least walk around the other side of the bed without stubbing my damn toe. I glanced at the corner where the stack of paperwork and the bereavement cards hidden underneath had been, and found they too were gone.
Like they hadn’t been there at all.
Something else was different, though. I glanced at the bed, conjuring the memory of where everything had been. My gaze went to the MacBook first, on my pillow, then my clothes…and stilled at the crumpled ball of my panties. Fear coursed through me. I stepped closer, picking them up and they expanded in my hands.
Creases in the fabric.
What the hell were they doing touching my underwear?
Maybe they fell. Maybe they knocked the bed as they moved the machines out and they picked them up before tossing them onto the bed. I glanced at where I was sure they’d been buried under the pile of new clothes I'd grabbed, and pushed the thought out of my mind.
It didn’t matter. I tossed them to the side and flopped down on the bed, reached for my new laptop, and spent the rest of the time pulling it out of the box, hooking it up to charge, and deciding my settings, then I loaded a pretty image of a purple butterfly on the screen before the heavy thud of footsteps drew my attention.
My pulse thundered as the sound stopped on the landing outside my room. I pushed the Mac from my lap and rose, but then abeepcame from a cell and the heavy thud of steps drifted back down the stairs.
I stepped closer as the thump of the front door closing sounded.
“Dinner, Ryth!”Creed called.
I opened the door, my gaze moving along the landing to their rooms. The doors were closed, no sounds of gunfire. Peace. I made my way down the stairs as the heady scent of cheese and deliciousness hit me.
“Oh man, that smells…” I began as I stepped into the dining room, and froze.
They were all there…allthreeof them.
Three grown men as well as Creed…and Mom, staring at me.
“Delicious,” the deep growl came from the broody one who was glaring at me.
